


Hold Your Breath

by mochiboom



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-24
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:33:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochiboom/pseuds/mochiboom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Yagyuu isn't the only one who's dense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Fuck you, Masaharu.” His cheek stings and he’s sure there’s a red slap mark on his face. He stares blankly at the floor, refusing to look at the mop of brown hair in front of him.

“Fuck you, Masaharu.” Again, it’s getting old already, Niou decides. He closes his eyes.

“Be my guest,” he grins, eyes still closed but he can see the sunlight through his eyelids and it’s such a bright red that it must match the mark on his face.

The girl in front of him huffs, slaps him again, on the other cheek this time, for good measure and walks away, brushing past him with such an air of finality that Niou can’t help but let out a little sob disguised as a bark of laughter.

Sure, they’d only been going out for a fortnight, but Chiaki had been serious. Niou, on the other hand, was only going out with her because of two reasons;

One, his father was growing suspicious of a distinct lack of girlfriends and the amount of time he was spending with his tennis team. Mainly Yagyuu, if Niou was honest.

And two because Chiaki had short brown hair and glasses and was so, so much like Yagyuu, who Niou couldn’t have, that he agreed to date her mostly because of her nerdy looks.

But damn, she’d make a good tennis player. Niou’s right jaw ached from where she’d slapped it and as he ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, he felt ragged scrapes where his teeth had bitten into the flesh of his mouth. With the right training, she’d have a pretty mean forehand.

Sighing, he fixed two teeth on the little scrap of flesh and slowly pulled it off, relishing in the sharp sting and the bitter copper taste flooding his mouth. Jamming his hands in his pockets, he turned and spat the bloody mouthful out the window and ambled nonchalantly along the corridor to the school rooftop.

\- - -

The roof is deserted when he gets there; slightly breathless from the long trek up the punishing flight of stairs he’d taken to get there. He slumps down against one of the cooling units, undoing his top button and working his tie down. The rooftop is baked white-hot from the sun, and the seat of his trousers soon becomes uncomfortably hot. Fidgeting, he reluctantly drags himself to the left, into the dark rectangle of shade and lets his legs stretch out in front of him, white sneakers filthy and battered.

He drops his head backwards against the metal body of the cooler, steel and bone meeting in an unpleasant combination and Niou closes his eyes as tiny pinpricks of colour dance across his retinas and his head throbs in time with the dull, metronome predictability of his heart.

A shadow falls across his face, and Niou cracks open his eyes, squinting up at the silhouetted figure before him.  
“Skipping again, Niou-kun?”  
It’s Yagyuu, cigarette in his mouth and shirt sleeves folded neatly up to his elbows, the sun practically bouncing off the gleaming, polished leather of his picture-perfect-regulation-brown-school-shoes.

Niou snorts, closing his eyes again.  
“I could say the same for you, Mr Student Council President. What would your council say if they knew their beloved leader was a smoker?”

In response, Yagyuu plucks the stick out from between his lips and bends forwards, tie brushing against Niou’s collarbone and blows a lungful of acrid, stinging smoke in Niou’s face.

Niou scrunches his nose up, retorting by snatching the cigarette away from his doubles partner and stubbing it out on the scalding tile of the roof; not before he takes a drag on it himself.

Yagyuu settles next to him, and almost reflexively, Niou slides sideways, rumpling Yagyuu’s neatly pressed shirt and lays his head in his partner’s lap, wild blond hair splaying out over the grey, trouser-clad thighs beneath him. Yagyuu’s hand settles in Niou’s hair, working his rattail free of the elastic band and cards his fingers through the knots and snarls his fingers encounter.

Niou sinks into him, eyes slipping closed against the heat of the sun and the all too-tempting notion that he might fall asleep with his head on Yagyuu’s lap like some love struck schoolgirl. Kind of like Chiaki if he’s honest.

Yagyuu’s evidently finished detangling Niou’s hair, because he’s beginning to re-plait it and Niou can’t see what he’d doing, but he knows its much neater then Niou’s three-second efforts. And also because he knows how anal Yagyuu is about these things, and finds it kind of endearing.

And now Niou’s wondering it the heat’s making him delirious, because no way in hell did he just find his doubles partner; his asexual, nerdy doubles partner, endearing.  
“Shit,” Niou mutters, then freezes when he feels Yagyuu stop and look down at him, the muscles in his thighs shifting under Niou’s cheek.

“Something wrong, Niou-kun?” Niou finds he can’t decipher Yagyuu’s tone of voice and so just decides to play it safe.

“Chiaki broke up with me.” He mumbles, sounding quite heartbroken, in his opinion, anyway.

Yagyuu hums in sympathy.  
“Ishitaka-san?” Niou nods… wait… that was her surname, wasn’t it? Yagyuu doesn’t question it, so he just goes with it, nodding at all the right answers and shaking his head at all the wrong ones. Yagyuu’s resumed his plaiting and Niou closes his eyes at the feeling on Yagyuu’s fingers just fluttering at the nape of his neck.

What feels like years later, but is in all likelihood only a few minutes, Yagyuu’s gently shaking his shoulder and Niou blinks his way back into the sunlight, groggy and disorientated and with an annoying crick in his neck from his position on Yagyuu’s thighs which are about as comfortable to sleep on as concrete.

Whining at the back of his throat, he pushes himself into a sitting position, scooting backwards until his tailbone hits the cooler behind him with a clang. He slides down it slightly, chin nearly touching his chest and closes his eyes again.

He jumps at the sound of one of the doors downstairs opening and opens one eye to check his watch. Next to him, Yagyuu shifts, stretching his long arms above his head and getting up with such the grace and finesse that Yukimura would be proud.

Heaving a sigh, Niou, with slightly less grace and grabbing onto Yagyuu’s shoulder for balance, stands, rolling his neck in satisfaction at the audible clicking. Yagyuu grimaces.

“That’s disgusting, Niou-kun”

Niou grins up at him.

“My bad, Yagyuu” and he saunters off. Yagyuu trots ahead of him, fretting about the time and telling Niou to hurry up or they’ll be late for tennis. Niou increases his speed to a slow jog, just to get him to shut up, and certainly not because he wanted to stare at Yagyuu’s ass in the changing room.

Course not.


	2. Chapter 2

Contrary to Yagyuu’s fears, only the Three Demons and Akaya are in the changing room when the pair shows up.   
“Good afternoon, Yagyuu-kun,” Yukimura smiles. Niou turns to glare at Akaya, who responds in kind while Yagyuu greets Yukimura.

Sanada nods at Niou and he grins, debating whether-or-not to put conditioner in his vice-captain’s trainers again. He turns to his locker, flipping through the combination on his padlock and opens the door, accidently-on-purpose hitting Akaya in the back of the head.

Pulling his shirt, still buttoned, over his head, he screws it up and lobs it onto the top shelf in his locker, fishing his tennis uniform out of the neatly folded pile in the bottom. Yagyuu’s evidently been in his locker again, waiting ‘til Niou’s in the showers before stealing his partner’s uniform and taking it home to wash it.

Niou snorts and Yagyuu looks at him like he’s grown another head.   
“You’re like a housewife, Yagyuu.” Yagyuu rolls his eyes and bends to pull his shorts on. Niou pauses in his undressing, staring unashamedly at Yagyuu’s ass. Yagyuu’s got a nice one; he thinks absently, nice legs too. He turns away when Yagyuu stands up and pulls his clean shirt over his head, stopping to breath in the scent of Yagyuu’s detergent.

“Stuck Niou?” Niou groans inwardly. Marui’s shown up at last, meaning Jackal must have bribed him with some sort of cake, as Marui usually ends up going to the ice-cream parlour down the road on Thursday afternoons, regardless of whether tennis is on or not.

“No, unlike you who will be if you eat anymore cake; you won’t fit into your shirt anymore.” Marui frowns, but can’t retort as, like Niou suspected, he’s got a mouthful of doughnut.

The fatty brushes past him, a stench of sugar wafting behind him. Niou attempts to cover it up with deodorant, but ends up gassing Akaya instead, who steadily turns purple in the face.

Sanada ends up dragging the brat into the showers and sticking him under the cold spray. Niou can hear the screams even from the other side of the tennis courts, where he’s running his punishment laps.

His rat tail is sticking to the back of his neck. Niou thinks it’s gross, but every time he goes to brush it away it ends up falling back into the exact same place. At this rate, he’ll get tan lines.

He finishes the twenty laps Yukimura set him just as the rest of the regulars finish their own warm up ones. Marui’s face is roughly the same shade of red as his hair and he’s gasping like a fish out of water, leaning heavily on Jackal’s shoulder.

Yagyuu tosses Niou a towel as he jogs over. He snatches it out of the air and rubs it over his face and his neck. The gross, sticky feeling at the top of his spine immediately disappears and Niou sighs a little in relief, chugging Yagyuu’s water. In response, Yagyuu drinks all of Niou’s own water, a smirk playing on his lips.

Yukimura, who still manages to look imposing and terrifying despite being as pale as paper splits the doubles teams up and assigns them to play each other; Niou and Jackal vs Yagyuu and Marui.

Niou thanks his lucky stars that he’s not playing with Marui; he’s still out of breath from the warm up laps. Taking him out will be a cinch. The only problem is Yagyuu, who, Niou knows from experience, is a much greater challenge.

Despite his earlier fatigue, Marui’s soon dashing around the court, returning almost all of Niou’s shots as irritating little volleys that Niou can never quite seem to predict. That being said, Niou thinks as he smashes the ball past the self-proclaimed genius’ smug little face there’s no one quite as unpredictable as-

The ball zooms past his face, knocking Jackal’s racquet clean out of his hand. Yagyuu stands in his picture perfect Laser Beam pose, sunlight flashing off his glasses. Niou scowls and scuffs the ground with his shoe, rubbing a dry lump of mud into the asphalt and dirtying the white of the inner tramline.

“Nice, Yagyuu,” he drawls, propping his racquet over one shoulder as he cocks his head, teeth bared in a feral grin.

In the end, despite bringing the game to tiebreak, Niou and Jackal ultimately lose 7 games to 5 and Niou reluctantly shakes Marui’s sticky hand, fighting the urge to wipe it furiously on his shorts. Not that Yagyuu’s isn’t much better; all sweaty and gross, but at least his isn’t tacky with sugar. Niou shudders, he feels diabetic just from hanging around Marui and has no idea how Jackal puts up with him

They sit on the bleachers for the rest of practice, until the sun dips below the spectator stands and turns the court a weird shade of purple and Sanada’s booming voice announces the end of practice for the day.

Marui hangs irritatingly off Niou’s shoulder in the changing rooms, chewing noisily on his gum and Niou scowls as it smacks and pops in his ear.  
“Wanna go out for a burger? Jackal’s paying.”   
Marui grins over at Jackal who glares at him before shaking his head and turning away to zip up his tennis bag.

Niou shoves Marui off his shoulder and stand up, rooting through his locker for the little travel-size bottle of shampoo.  
“Not likely, fatty. ‘Sides, I’m busy tonight.”  
Inwardly, he freezes, knowing what’s coming next.

“Oooh, ‘busy’?” Marui drawls, sidling up next to him, hair all damp from the showers. “Got a date, Niou?”

Niou snorts, grabs his shampoo and towel and walks as quickly as he can into the showers. Outwardly, he’s calm, but inwardly he’s so embarrassed he could die. Yagyuu had been looking at him strangely during the entire thing and Niou can’t shake the feeling that he missed something important.


	3. Chapter 3

The showers are deserted when Niou goes in. He can still hear Marui’s annoying voice through the wall and the air is muggy with steam that smells vaguely of sweat and mud. Somewhat unsurprising consider the heat outside. His bare feet slap on the tiled floor and he wrinkles his nose at the blackened grout in-between the white tiles.

Choosing the cubicle right at the end of the line, Niou steps inside, splashing a puddle of lukewarm water as he swings the door shut behind him and flings his towel over the top of the door frame. The tap squeaks when he turns it and he fights to repress a sigh of relief when hot water blasts out of the showerhead, drumming the ache out of his tired muscles and swamping the cubicle with white steam.

Niou lets the water run over him for a few minutes, his hair slick at his neck, before reaching blindly for his shampoo. He flips the plastic cap open and squirts half the bottle into his palm, the artificial scent of apple filling the small cubicle. Chucking the bottle, still open, onto the floor, he lazily lathers the shampoo into his hair, fingertips rubbing over his scalp.

Vaguely, he wonders what Yagyuu’s hair feels like; he’s barely ever seen it out of its harsh and perfectly straight parting. Even after showering and despite entering the changing rooms in nothing more than a tiny towel, Yagyuu’s hair is always perfectly parted. Something in his belly stirs at the thought of that outrageously small towel and Niou opens one eye and glances down at his dick, which is by now, half hard.

“Shit.” He mutters, letting his hands drop to his sides and the water run over his hair. He has two choices.

One; ignore his hard-on and finish his shower, hoping to god that there’s no one left in the changing room, or

Two; deal with it there and then and try and be quiet.

Deciding not to risk Marui seeing, he braces his right hand against the cool shower tiles and wraps his left around his dick. He jerks forwards at the contact; the hot steam made his skin hyper sensitive and he bites down on his lip as he strokes himself in firm, fast movements. The water pounds on his back with a heavy rhythm and his toes curl into the inch of water on the floor.

Nearing completion, he rests his forehead against the wall and speeds up, breath coming in harsh pants. Clenching his hand on the tiles and running his thumb over the purpling head of his cock he comes, hard, Yagyuu’s name on his lips. The white splashes of come are almost immediately washed away by the water, but the images in Niou’s head are not so easily removed. He heaves a shuddering breath, body still jerking from his climax moments ago.

Yagyuu.

Of all the fucking people he thinks about as he comes, it’s Yagyuu?

Well damn, he’s in it now.

Breathing still uneven, he snatches the discarded bottle of shampoo and uses it like soap, smearing it all over his body in an attempt to hide the musky stench of come and sweat. In a final act of desperation, he yanks the temperature gauge round to the left, yelping at the stream of icy cold water that hits his body, removing any lingering arousal.

After a few minutes under the cold water, he turns the tap off and grabs his towel, viciously rubbing his hair dry until it puffs up like a hedgehog’s spines. Wiping the condensation off one of the mirrors, he scrapes the lengths back into his trademark rat tail and wraps his towel around his waist. Chucking the now-empty bottle of shampoo into a bin as he passes, he returns to the mercifully empty changing rooms.

By now, the sun has dipped well below the horizon, dying the sky a deep blue. Moodily, he flicks on the lights and nearly jumps when he sees Yagyuu sitting on one of the benches, nose in a book.

“Oh, there you are, Niou-kun. I was beginning to wonder if you’d drowned in there.” Yagyuu snaps the book shut, placing it on the bench next to him. It’s got some foreign title, probably one of Yagyuu’s weird crime novels again.

Niou turns his back on him and opens his locker, fishing out his deodorant. “What are you still doing here? Club finished ages ago.”

There’s silence for a while, until Yagyuu sighs. “Niou-kun, it’s Thursday, you always come back to my house on Thursdays, don’t you remember?”

“Shit, really?” Niou winces, way to go, idiot. “Sorry, must’ve forgotten, ‘sides, I can’t make it tonight, busy.” Which is a complete lie of course, he’s got nothing to do tonight, but after what happened in the shower, he’s struggling to look Yagyuu in the eye let alone sleep in the same room as him.

“And I for one know that’s a lie, Niou-kun. Your voice goes lower when you lie, did you know that? You should really work on that.” Niou scowls, chucking his deodorant back into his lock with a clang and yanks on his school shirt, not bothering to do up the top three buttons and decides to forgo his tie.

Shrugging his blazer on, he lobs his towel in and bends to pull on his socks. Suddenly, Yagyuu appears behind him, fishing out his towel, tennis shirt and shorts and packing them into a plastic bag. Niou’s not sure he can take much more of this and straightens, nearly smashing the back of his skull into Yagyuu’s face.

He snatches the bag of clothes away. “God-dammit, Yagyuu, you’re not my fucking mother!” He explodes, shoving the bag into his tennis case. “And you sure as hell aren’t my fucking wife either,” he sneers. “So stop trying to be.”

Yagyuu doesn’t say anything and Niou turns around to find he’s gone, leaving the door wide open in his wake. The pages of his forgotten book flutter in the evening breeze and the trees outside cast long stretching shadows, pointing accusingly at Niou.

Good going, idiot.

“Fuck!” he yells, punching Akaya’s locker door so hard it bends in on itself. His hand explodes in pain, blood dribbling out of the split knuckles, but it’s nothing compared to the aching, choking feeling encompassing his entire chest like an enormous hand crushing his lungs.

Sinking to his knees and cradling his busted hand to his chest, Niou gasps soundlessly at the air, trying to ignore the stinging in his eyes and trying to deny what just happened.

He’s done it now.

“Yagyuu…”


	4. Chapter 4

Niou slinks home. His phone hadn’t stopped vibrating all the way and when he stepped in the front door, he found a very angry Chiaki standing at the foot of the stairs, hands on her hips.  
“Masaharu,” She starts, Niou groans and toes his shoes off. “Where the fuck were you? I waited at the café all afternoon. How could you stand me up?”

“How did you get in?” Niou asks, eyeing her suspiciously.

“I met your sister just as she was leaving; she let me in.” Chiaki replies, stepping closer. Niou takes a step backwards as surreptitiously as he can.

“After this morning, I figured the whole ‘date’ thing would be pretty much--” She cuts him off loudly.

“Don’t be stupid, Masaharu; we had an argument, a tiny falling-out. That doesn’t mean I don’t still want to date you!” there’s something akin to desperation in her eyes and Niou glowers as his cheek throbs in memory of the slap from their ‘little falling-out’.

At his lack of response she throws her hands in the air. “I give up, Masaharu. You evidently don’t give a fuck.”

“I thought that would have been obvious.” Niou sneers, picking up his tennis bag and brushing past her to the stairs.  
“You’re not my girlfriend, Chiaki. Not anymore.”

She stares at him.

“So this past year meant nothing to you? Absolutely nothing?”

Niou pauses on the stairs. “Nope. Nothing at all.” He should be pleased at the sharp intake of breath behind him, but he doesn’t; instead he just feels even more annoyed.

“You absolute bastard.” Snatching up her handbag and shoving her shoes on, she storms out the house, slamming the door behind her. Silence reigns for a few minutes before Niou continues his slow journey up the stairs.

Not bothering to undress, he flops face-first onto the bed, face crushed into the pillow, He lies there for a few seconds until his phone vibrates again. While his first thought is to ignore it, he slowly rolls over onto his side and fishes his phone out of his pocket.

It’s Marui. He flips the phone open. “What the hell do you want, fatty?”

“Hey!” Marui’s indignant voice blasts through the speaker and Niou winces, holding the phone a good few inches from his ear. “I’m not fat!”

Niou smirks. “Sure you’re not. Anyway, what do you want?”

“Wanna tell me what it is you were doing tonight?” Marui’s grin is evident through his voice and Niou groans in despair, smushing his face further into his pillow.

“Nothing. I was doing nothing, okay?” He admits.

“But… wait.” Marui’s confused. “Then, why did you…?”

Niou doesn’t say anything; instead flipping his phone shut and hanging up on his classmate. Rolling back onto his face again, he shucks his trousers and shirt off, lying there in his boxers.

\- - -

He has no idea how long he lies there, but eventually he hears the front door open and shut and his mum’s voice floats up the stairs.

“Masaharu? Are you home?”

He opens his eyes slowly, but continues to lie there, prostrate on his futon. the LED display on his clock shows that it’s half past six and his cat has joined him on the bed. She’s purring away in his ear and he rubs behind her ear, wincing at the tiny pinpricks of pain as her claws dig into his shoulder.

“Masaharu? I know you are; your shoes are by the front door.” She starts up the stairs and Niou quickly shuffles under his duvet, disturbing his cat, which yowls at him and leaps gracefully off the bed and slinks over to his desk chair. Pulling his duvet over his head he burrows into it, curling into a ball like a hedgehog. His mum opens the bedroom door.

“Ugh, Masaharu, it stinks in here. When was the last time you opened a window?” When she gets no response, she kneels down by the futon, avoiding a pile of dirty washing and a couple of magazines. A few spikes of bleached white hair are sticking out from under the duvet and she pulls it back slightly, exposing his face.

“Masaharu?” She whispers. “What’s the matter? Are you sick.”

Niou looks at her, not quite meeting her eyes, before closing his own and nodding his head. She pats his flushed cheek.   
“I’ll bring you up some tea.” He doesn’t move again, so she leaves, taking his full-to-bursting laundry bag with her.

Niou’s left alone in his dark bedroom, the top of the duvet like a scarf around his neck and the mattress sheet tangled around his socked feet. He doesn’t have the energy to move, despite the stifling heat and the vague feeling of asphyxiation he’s experiencing.

Outside his window, the sky fades to velvet black and the street lights come on, flooding the road outside with honey-yellow light that shines through the gap in his curtains.

Over on the other side of the city, Yagyuu looks up from his English homework as the light outside his window switches on. The plant Niou gave him for his last birthday is bathed in a golden light, turning the deep red flower a burning orange. The edges of the leaves look gilded and Yagyuu is vaguely reminded of King Midas, a man similar in temperament to Niou, who turns everything he touches to cold, smooth gold.

He turns back to his homework and tries to finish his essay on Mercutio’s incorrigible temper and its dreadful consequences.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Sorry for the wait!

The next day, Niou skips practice for the first time in his life. Instead of rising at six o’clock, he lies in bed until eight, having told his mum that he didn’t feel up to practice and promising to ring Yukimura-buchou to tell him. He didn’t ring Yukimura, choosing instead to complete yesterday’s homework the he failed to do last night. After dragging himself out of bed and standing under a lukewarm shower for ten minutes, he rushes out of the house, hair still wet and fifteen minutes late for school.

By the time he gets there, period one is already half over, so he skives and instead spends the morning sitting on the roof, brooding. Half of him hopes that Yagyuu will come and find him, but as time passes, he stops listening out for the slam of the door and instead toys with the idea of dropping stones on the unsuspecting students passing below.

He doesn’t, merely sitting on the roof for two whole hours, watching the wispy clouds pass overhead and drawing pictures in the dust on top of the air conditioning units. He rubs them off when he discovers all of them had been Yagyuu’s face and squats against the metal, bolts digging into his spine.

Inside, the lunch bell rings, but Niou, while his stomach growls loudly at him from the lack of breakfast, has no intentions of moving. He sits up on the roof for all of lunch, too, before reluctantly heading off to his afternoon classes and hoping he doesn’t run into Yagyuu.

While his teachers look at him oddly for his sudden appearance, they don’t say anything, so Niou spends the last two lessons of the day actually paying attention and trying to avoid Marui’s inquisitive gaze. When the final bell rings, Niou sweeps his belongings into his bag and tries to leave the classroom without running into Marui.

Unfortunately, his plans are hampered by Yukimura, who is lying in wait outside his classroom. Yukimura smiles down at him and Niou scowls back.  
“Niou-kun, Marui texted me during class today and told me you’d finally showed up. I hope you plan on coming to practice today, or you’ll be running laps for the rest of the week.”  
His smile widens,  
“Do I make myself clear?”

Niou sighs, nodding in response and glowers at Marui as the three of them head to practice. They pick up Sanada, Jackal and Akaya on the way there and Niou’s soon left to walk on his own as Akaya starts hanging off Sanada’s arm and Marui chatters to Jackal. He’s dreading seeing Yagyuu and attempts to sneak off again but Yukimura catches him, a sweet smile on his face informing him that he’ll have to run laps for the rest of the season if he even thinks about skipping again.

Wisely, Niou follows him inside.

Yagyuu’s already changed when they enter, sitting on the same bench as always and reading the same book as yesterday. He doesn’t even glance up when Niou walks past him to pull out his crumpled, unwashed uniform. Niou wrinkles his nose, spraying the fabric with half a can of deodorant in an attempt to ward off the stale, sweaty smell.

As soon as Yukimura’s changed, Yagyuu stands and follows him out on to the courts, not sparing a backwards glance and leaving Niou alone with his shirt in one hand. Akaya glance up at him from buttoning up his collar.  
“What’s wrong, Niou-senpai?”

Niou blinks, turns to Akaya and ruffles his hair, ignoring the brat’s shrieks and pulls his top over his head.

Fine.

If that’s how Yagyuu wants to play, it’s game on.

\- - -

Niou stalks onto the courts, racquet slung over one shoulder and saunters over to where the regulars were gathered, brushing past Yagyuu and standing next to Marui. Yukimura glances at him but continues speaking in loud, demanding tones. Niou glances to the right, where Yagyuu is standing next to Yanagi, but Yagyuu’s staring pointedly ahead, the sun turning the lenses of his glasses white.

As Yukimura finishes, he turns to Niou and says in no unclear terms that the two doubles teams will be playing each other today and dismisses them. Niou stared at him blankly for a few seconds, before turning on his heel and stalking over to the benches.

He starts his warm-up laps quickly and is on his third by the time Yagyuu starts. Having no stretching partner, he coerces Akaya into helping him, using his poor English marks as leverage.

As he bends over his stretched leg, Niou watches Yagyuu finish his warm-up and Yanagi sidle over him. They talk for a few seconds, before Yagyuu nods and bends over to touch his toes. Niou looks away, chewing on the inside of his mouth again and proceeds to blank Yagyuu for the rest of his stretching routine.

Marui and Jackal are waiting for them when the two of them walk onto the court, a fair distance between them and no eye contact whatsoever. Jackal looks questioningly at Marui, who shrugs in response and moves to the net. Niou positions himself at the baseline, snatching a couple of tennis balls from the bucket and shoving one into his pocket.

In front of him, Yagyuu’s bent over slightly and Niou can make out his racquet loose in his hands. He scowled, bounces the ball a couple of time and serves it hard and fast, watching in satisfaction as it rockets past Jackal and rebounds off the fence. Marui stares at him, Niou flips him off and moves to the other side of the court, Yagyuu mirrors him.

Jackal manages a straight return on Niou’s next serve, but despite it being both well behind the service box and in Niou’s side of the court; Yagyuu backs up and smashes it clean into the tramlines. Marui leaps for it, the ball rebounding off his racquet frame and Yagyuu smashes it again into the opposite corner.

Niou stands forgotten at the baseline, hand clenched tightly around his racquet handle.

The same thing happened again, and again; Niou would serve, it would be returned and every time, Yagyuu wouldn’t let the ball past the service box. He was, in essence, totally cutting Niou out of the game.

“Hey, Yagyuu!” Niou shouts, having finally had enough of Yagyuu’s over-controlling. “You’re not playing fucking singles!”

If Yagyuu had heard him, he gave no response; Niou swears and serves the ball straight into Yagyuu’s shoulder. His racquet clatters to the floor and the members watching the match hush suddenly. Yukimura stands and walks calmly, quietly, over to their court, striding over to Niou and slapping him across the face.

“Get off this court, both of you.” He turns to glare at Yagyuu who bends to pick up his racquet. “Don’t come back to practice until you’ve sorted yourselves out. It’s less than a month till’ Nationals and I will not have our reign scuppered by this petty dispute.”

Niou turns, cheek still smarting and half-runs off the court. He doesn’t hear Yagyuu follow him, doesn’t care and runs past both the changing rooms and the main school building in an effort to distance himself from the club. He slips down behind the bike sheds and sits on a rickety wooden crate, flinging his racquet down and resting his forehead on his knees.

The pain in his cheek is slowly fading and he presses his eyes into his kneecaps, enjoying the pulsing burn it produced. He sits there, silent, for a long time, before hearing footsteps and looks up in time to see Yagyuu poke his head round the wall. Niou glares at him and pointedly looks away.

This doesn’t seem to discourage Yagyuu, though; he slips in the narrow gap and hunches down in front of Niou, putting his hands on his shoulders.  
“I don’t know what I’ve done, Niou-kun, but I’ll apologise for it anyway. We can’t put our team’s performance in jeopardy.” He lifts one hand off Niou’s shoulder and grasps his chin, forcing his partner to look him in the eye.

“What did I do? Tell me, so I can fix it.”

Niou rolls his eyes and swats Yagyuu’s hand away. On the outside, he was clam, irritated even, on the inside, his heart was pounding at the sheer proximity of Yagyuu; who’s so close Niou can see the faint spray of freckles across the bridge of his nose.

“You want to know what’s wrong, do you, Yagyuu~?” He sneers and grabs a handful of Yagyuu’s shirt. “You’re what’s fucking wrong, okay? I hate how, how you clean up after me, and mother me all the time, and, and I especially hate that you still insist on calling me ‘Niou-kun’ despite the fact we’re fucking doubles partners, okay? That’s what really annoys me; you. Now piss off and-”

He’s cut off by Yagyuu’s mouth descending on his and any and all thoughts of anger are swept away by the force of Yagyuu’s kiss. Kissing Yagyuu’s exhilarating and addictive and when Yagyuu pulls away, Niou’s panting for breath; pupils blown wide and a dazed look on his face. Yagyuu leans in again, breath hot against Niou’s ear.

“Am I still the problem now, Masaharu?” He enunciates Niou’s give name carefully, his voice low and husky in Niou’s ear.

“Oh, whoa!” Niou’s head snaps up, looking over Yagyuu’s shoulder and sees Marui’s grinning face peering around the side of the shed. “Sorry, should I leave you guys alone?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, chewing obnoxiously on his gum.

“That will not be necessary, Marui-kun.” Niou glances at Yagyuu out of the corner of his eye. Yagyuu’s cool façade has settled on his countenance again, but something akin to lust flickers behind his glasses, which he pushes up his nose with a slender finger.

Marui’s mouth drops open and Niou grins wickedly. Yagyuu Hiroshi, perfect gentleman and student council president is actually giving someone the finger. Yagyuu looks at him. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re grinning about, Masaharu.”

Niou’s stomach does a funny jolt when Yagyuu says his name. He grabs him by the collar and kisses him fiercely. Marui squeaks and Niou flips the bird at him without skipping a beat.

Yagyuu presses him against the wall of the shed, hands like iron on Niou’s thighs. They both spring apart when Yukimura sticks his head around the corner. “As lovely as it is to see you two have made up,” He begins, smiling sweetly. “We still have practice for another hour and you will not be spending it snogging behind the bike sheds. Now get back on the court, ten laps, both of you.”

Niou groans, dropping his head onto Yagyuu’s shoulder. Yukimura smiles at them once more then returning to the courts. Reluctantly, Yagyuu stands, Niou doesn’t stop himself from staring this time. Yagyuu smirks at him and Niou grins back.

“Coming, Masaharu?” Niou clambers to his feet and follows Yagyuu out back into the sunlight. They walk side-by-side, Niou slouching and Yagyuu ramrod straight, ever the motley doubles pair. Sanada glares at Niou from under his cap and Yukimura tries to be serious as he does the same at Yagyuu but there’s a smile playing on his lips.

They take their places on the court, Niou immediately sets abut provoking the cocksure second years facing them and Yagyuu’s lips twitch in a smile. He tosses the ball skyward, arches his back and slams the ball down into the service box. Their opponents gape; Yagyuu adjusts his glasses; Niou’s mouth curves in a wicked smirk.

While tennis is exhilarating, playing it with Yagyuu is incredible. They will be the number one doubles team in this year’s nationals.

There is no doubt anymore.


End file.
